2004 Russian
President Vladimir Putin [07 Oct 1952~] fires Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov
(and with him the whole government, as required by the constitution) and
names Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Khristenko as acting prime minister.
Putin has long expressed impatience with Kasyanov, who is associated with
the former administration of Boris Yeltsin, for not proceeding quickly enough
with reform and not producing strong enough economic growth. Putin wants
a more compliant prime minister to serve him into the new term he is expected
to win in the 14 March 2003 presidential election.2003 The world's third largest retailer is Dutch global
operator of supermarkets Royal Ahold NV, (AHO), surpassed by Wal~Mart (WMT)
and Carrefour. AHO announces that its earnings for 2002 and earlier were
grossly overestimated and that its President and Chief Executive Officer,
Cees van der Hoeven, and Chief Financial Officer, Michael Meurs, will resign.
On the NYSE 16 million of the 931 million AHO shares are traded, dropping
from their previous close of $10.69 to an intraday low of $3.60 and closing
at $4.16. The next day they close at $3.47. They had traded as high as $26.69
as recently as 03 April 2002 and $41.56 on 12 April 1999. [5~year price
chart >]2002 Shadiya Shehadah, Palestinian
about to give birth, being driven to the hospital by her husband, Esam,
31, is shot in the shoulder by Israeli soldiers, after the car has been
searched at a checkpoint. The Israelis say that they had moved a temporary
roadblock, which the Shehadahs say they did not notice. The baby is born
unharmed.2001 From their jungle strongholds in Chiapas,
Zapatista leaders start a well-publicized 16-day caravan to Mexico City,
with 33 public events planned along the way, to pressure the Mexican Congress
to adopt constitutional amendments that would extend indigenous rights.
2000 The U.N. Security Council approved a US-drafted
plan to send an observer force into Congo to monitor a fragile cease-fire.
2000 Pope John Paul II arrived in Egypt on a pilgrimage
to retrace some of the most epic passages from the Bible.

Broaddrick, then a registered nurse who had started a nursing home
in Van Buren, Arkansas, says the two met for the first time earlier in
the year when Clinton made a campaign stop at the nursing home.

According to Broaddrick, Clinton invited her to "please stop
by our campaign office" on her next visit to Little Rock.

Broaddrick says she called Clinton's campaign office when she arrived
in Little Rock for a nursing administrators' conference and was given
the phone number of his apartment. At first, she says, he offered to meet
her at the hotel coffee shop, but then suggested he come to her room because
there were reporters in the coffee shop.

Broaddrick says she felt no danger when she let Clinton into her Little
Rock hotel room. But she says once Clinton was in the room, he forced
himself on her even though she rejected his advances by pushing him away
and saying "no."

Broaddrick says, "I first pushed him away
and just told him, No, please don't do that ... I said, I'm married, and
I have other things going on in my life, and this is something that I'm
not interested in."

She tells Myers, "...I tried to get away
from him and I told him, No, that I didn't want this to happen, but he
wouldn't listen to me."

Broaddrick is asked: "You're saying that
Bill Clinton sexually assaulted you, that he raped you?""Yes,"
she answers."It was a real panicky, panicky situation,"
Broaddrick tells Myers. "I was even to the point
where I was getting very noisy, you know, yelling, to  you know
 to please stop. But that's when he would press down on my right
shoulder and he would bite on my lip."
MYERS: You're saying that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted you, that he
raped?
Ms. BROADDRICK: Yes.
MYERS: And you have no  there's no doubt in your mind that that's
what happened?
Ms. BROADDRICK: No doubt whatsoever.

Broaddrick says she didn't report the alleged incident at the time
because she didn't think she would be believed. Since Clinton was the
attorney general of Arkansas at the time, "I
didn't think anyone would believe me in the world," she says.

She says she went to a fund-raising event for Clinton weeks after the
alleged assault. "I think I was still in denial,"
she says. "And I still felt very guilty at that
time that it was my fault by letting him come to the room."

In the NBC interview, Broaddrick cries briefly as she details the alleged
assault. Asked what she now thought of Clinton, she replies: "My
hatred for him is overwhelming."

Broaddrick tells NBC nobody tried to intimidate her to remain silent
and no one paid her to keep quiet or to speak out.

She says she had filed an affidavit in the Jones case denying she'd
had any unwelcome advances from Clinton because she was unwilling to tell
her story at that time.

"I just couldn't hold it inside any longer,"
Broaddrick says in trying to explain why she is finally coming forward
with her account. She says she didn't want her granddaughters and nieces
asking her, "Why didn't you tell what this man
did to you?" Broaddrick says, "...
I don't want to do anything. I do not have an agenda. I want to put all
these rumors to rest."

(2) Clinton refuses comment earlier in the day on Broaddrick's
allegations, saying he stands by the statement of his attorney, David
Kendall.

(3) The NBC interview of Broaddrick was taped January
20 but held by NBC until tonight's airing.

Clinton opponents accuse NBC of sitting on the interview in order to
protect the president and say that the interview, had it appeared earlier,
could have had an impact on the Senate impeachment trial that ended with
Clinton's acquittal February 12.

NBC says it had needed time to complete reporting on a complicated
story.

While the network tried to check out Broaddrick's account, The Wall
Street Journal did its own interview with Broaddrick, and other media
organizations followed.

(4) The question of whether Attorney General Janet Reno
has authority to investigate allegations of misconduct by Ken Starr's office
may be decided by the three-judge panel that appointed him. CNN reports
that the panel has given Reno and Starr 15 days to outline their positions
on the question of whether the Justice Department should investigate the
independent counsel. The three-judge panel is headed by David Sentelle of
Washington.

The panel's action is in response to a motion filed by the Landmark
Legal Foundation, a conservative public interest law firm. The foundation
has asked the court to bar Reno from probing allegations of wrongdoing
by Starr's staff. "We hope the court's order
is the first step towards stopping the attorney general's persistent efforts
to undermine Judge Starr's authority and independence," says
Mark Levin, president of Landmark Legal Foundation.

Originally, Reno had proposed that the Justice Department's Office
of Professional Responsibility conduct the investigation of Starr and
his staff.

However, Starr expressed concerns about the agency's involvement in
a potential probe in a recent letter to Reno. Since that time, Justice
officials have been struggling to construct a plan that would appear fair
to Starr.

Reno now is considering bringing in an outside investigator to look
into allegations of misconduct by Starr's office.

Among the options being discussed is having someone from a US attorney's
office outside of the Justice Department headquarters lead the investigation.

Also under consideration is choosing someone completely outside of
the Justice Department, such as a former or retired judge.

According to sources, the ideal situation would be to appoint someone
with a Republican background or an independent.

There are two primary allegations of misconduct against Starr's office:

The first concerns the discussion of an immunity deal by members of
Starr's team with Monica Lewinsky without her attorney present during
the January 1998 sting operation set up by the independent counsel's office
with the help of Linda Tripp. That would have been against Justice Department
guidelines.

The other allegation concerns whether the Office of the Independent
Counsel withheld information about its contact with attorneys affiliated
with Paula Jones, who had filed a sexual harassment claim against President
Clinton, when Starr approached Reno for authorization to expand his investigation
into the Lewinsky matter. The key question there is whether the attorney
general would have thought contacts with Jones' associates would have
presented a conflict of interest as Starr investigated the harassment
claim.

In addition, the Justice Department also is awaiting the results of
an investigation into alleged leaks of grand jury material. That investigation
was set in motion by Judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who oversees the Starr
grand jury.

(5) Created in the wake of the Watergate scandal, but
increasingly under assault from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, the
Independent Counsel Act will likely undergo a major overhaul, if it survives
at all. Battered by years of criticism first by Republican administrations
under investigation, and now by Democrats in the wake of Kenneth Starr's
five-year investigation of President Bill Clinton, the statute has few
fans on Capitol Hill.

Mechanics of the OIC law:

The law requires the attorney general to seek the appointment of an
independent counsel when there is substantial and credible evidence of
a crime by any one of 49 top federal officials, including the president.

A panel of three federal judges then picks an attorney for the job.
The prosecutor has an unlimited budget to hire aides and investigate his
target  a frequent point of criticism. Starr has spent nearly $50
million on the Clinton investigation.

With approval from the attorney general and the appointing judges,
the independent counsel can broaden investigations far beyond the original
mandate, another target of the law's critics. Starr's mandate, for example,
began with inquiries into Clinton's Whitewater land deals and widened
repeatedly, finally to the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to his impeachment
and trial.

Congress' frosty regard for the law began when Starr was still on the
bench of the US Court of Appeals in the 1980s. Republicans were the first
to complain of the law's abuse during Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's
seven-year Iran-Contra investigation. The controversy prompted Congress
to let the law lapse for 18 months during the early 1990s.

Ironically, it was Clinton who successfully campaigned for the law's
renewal in 1994. But two years ago, already under investigation by Starr,
Clinton said that the its costs had outweighed the benefits.

1998 El FBI y la policía de EE.UU destapan una red dedicada
a la venta de órganos humanos procedentes de presos chinos ejecutados en
su país. 1998 La Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular
(Parlamento) elige por unanimidad a Fidel Castro Ruz como presidente del
Consejo de Estado, el máximo órgano de poder en Cuba.1997
US Robotics ships its 56K modems, a week later than expected. Shortly after,
Rockwell would announce its own 56K modem, which worked on a different standard
than the US Robotics version. Many confused consumers hold off purchasing
higher-speed modems until the two companies agree on a standard in early
1998. 1997 South Africa announces that it is constructing
largest modern day blimp 1996 Cuba downs two small
American planes that it claims were violating Cuban airspace.
1995 The Dow-Jones Industrial Average reaches a record 4011.74

^1991
Gulf War ground offensive begins
After six weeks of intensive bombing against Iraq and its armed forces,
US-led coalition forces launch a ground invasion of Kuwait and Iraq.
On 02 August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, its tiny, oil rich neighbor,
and within hours Iraqi forces had occupied most strategic positions
in the country. One week later, Operation Shield, the American defense
of Saudi Arabia, began as US forces massed in the Persian Gulf. On
29 November 1990, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution
authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw
from Kuwait by 15 January 1991.
At 16:30 EST on 16 January 1991, Operation Desert Storm, a massive
US-led offensive against Iraq, began as the first fighter aircraft
were launched from Saudi Arabia and off of US and British aircraft
carriers in the Persian Gulf. All evening, aircraft from the US-led
military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world
watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live
via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. Operation Desert Storm was
conducted by an international coalition under the command of US General
Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from thirty-two nations, including
Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Over the next six
weeks, the allied force engaged in a massive air war against Iraq's
military and civil infrastructure, encountering little effective resistance
from the Iraqi air force. Iraqi ground forces were also helpless during
this stage of the war, and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's only significant
retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against
Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would
provoke Israel, and thus other Arab nations, to enter the conflict;
however, at the request of the US, Israel remained out of the war.
On 24 February, a massive coalition
ground offensive begins and Iraq's outdated and poorly supplied armed
forces are rapidly overwhelmed. By the end of the day, the Iraqi army
had effectively folded, 10'000 of its soldiers were held as prisoners,
and a US air base had been established deep inside Iraq. After less
than four days, Kuwait was liberated and the majority of Iraq's armed
forces had either been destroyed, surrendered, or retreated to Iraq.
On 28 February US President George Bush (Sr.) declared a cease-fire,
and Iraq pledged to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms. 125
US soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War with another 21 regarded
as missing in action.

1989 150-million-year-old fossil egg (oldest dinosaur
embryo) found.

^
1988 Supreme Court affirms right
to satirize public figures
The US Supreme Court votes eight to zero to overturn the $200'000
settlement awarded to the Reverend Jerry Falwell for his emotional
distress at being parodied in Hustler, a pornographic magazine.
In 1983, Hustler ran a piece parodying Falwell's first sexual experience
as a drunken, incestuous, childhood encounter with his mother in an
outhouse. Falwell, an important religious conservative and founder
of the Moral Majority political party, sued Hustler, and
its publisher, Larry Flynt, for libel. Falwell won the case, but Flynt
appealed, leading the Supreme Court to hear the case due to its constitutional
implications. On 24 February, the Supreme Court unanimously overturns
the lower court's decision, ruling that, although in poor taste, Hustler's
parody fell within the First Amendment's protection of freedom of
speech and the press.

1988 South African apartheid regime bans the UDF 1985 Birendra, Bir Bikram Shah Dev crowned King of Nepal
1984 Iraq resumes air attack on Iran.1984
Brunei celebra su independencia de la Corona británica. 1983
Dow Jones closes above 1100 mark for first time 1983
A US congressional commission releases a report condemning the internment
of Japanese-Americans during World War II as a "grave injustice."

^1982
US anti-Communist aid to Caribbean governments.
US President Ronald Reagan announces
a new program of economic and military assistance to nations of the
Caribbean designed to "prevent the overthrow of the governments in
the region" by the "brutal and totalitarian" forces of Communism.
The Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) was part of the Reagan administration's
effort to curb what it perceived to be the dangerous rise in communist
activity in Central America and the Caribbean. In the course of an
address to the Organization of American States, Reagan argued that
a massive new aid program to the Caribbean region was vitally necessary.
"If we do not act promptly and decisively in defense of freedom, new
Cubas will arise from the ruins of today's conflicts. We will face
more totalitarian regimes tied militarily to the Soviet Union, more
regimes exporting subversion, more regimes so incompetent yet so totalitarian
that their citizens' only hope becomes that of one day migrating to
other American nations as in recent years they have come to the United
States." Specifically, the President
called for increases of $350 million in economic aid and $60 million
in military assistance to the Caribbean. He also pledged US assistance
in increasing Caribbean trade with the United States and encouraging
private investment in the Caribbean. Reagan's proposal was in response
to what he and his advisors believed to be an increasing Soviet presence
in the Caribbean and Central America. In Nicaragua, the leftist Sandinista
regime had come to power in 1979. El Salvador was involved in a bloody
and brutal conflict between government forces supported by the United
States and leftist rebels. And on the island nation of Grenada, the
government of Maurice Bishop was establishing close ties to Cuba and
Fidel Castro. The CBI, however, had little impact on improving the
economic situation of the nations it was trying to aid. Eventually
the entire concept was allowed to simply fade away, and the Reagan
administration chose to employ more forceful anti-communist measures
in the region. These included support of the anti-Sandinista Contras,
massive military aid to the Salvadoran government, and, in 1983, the
invasion of Grenada to remove its leftist government.

^1968
Tet offensive halted as Hue is reconquered.
The Imperial Palace in Hue is recaptured by South Vietnamese troops. Although
the Battle of Hue was not officially declared over for another week, it
was the last major engagement of the Tet Offensive. At dawn on the first
day of the Tet holiday truce, Viet Cong forces, supported by large numbers
of North Vietnamese troops, launched the largest and best-coordinated offensive
of the war, driving into the center of South Vietnam's seven largest cities
and attacking 30 provincial capitals ranging from the Delta to the DMZ.
Among the cities taken during the first four days of the offensive were
Hue, Dalat, Kontum, and Quang Tri; in the north, all five provincial capitals
were overrun. At the same time, enemy forces shelled numerous allied airfields
and bases. Nearly 1000 Viet Cong were
believed to have infiltrated Saigon, and it required a week of intense fighting
by an estimated 11'000 US and South Vietnamese troops to dislodge them.
By February 10, the offensive was largely crushed, but with heavy casualties
on both sides. The former Imperial capital of Hue took almost a month of
savage house-to-house combat to regain. The city had come under attack by
two North Vietnamese regiments on January 31 and eventually elements of
three North Vietnamese divisions were involved in the fight. The main battle
centered on the Citadel, a five-square-kilometer fortress with walls 10
m high and 6 m thick built in 1802. It took eight battalions of US Marines
and troopers from the 1st Cavalry Division plus eleven South Vietnamese
battalions to evict the communists from the city. It was a costly battle.
The US Army suffered 74 dead and 507 wounded; the US Marines lost 142 dead
and 857 wounded. South Vietnamese losses totaled 384 dead and 1830 wounded.
North Vietnamese casualties included 5000 dead and countless more wounded.
The Tet Offensive ends as US and South
Vietnamese troops recapture the ancient capital of Hué from communist forces.
Although scattered fighting continued across South Vietnam for another week,
the battle for Hué was the last major engagement of the offensive, which
saw communist attacks on all of South Vietnam's major cities. In the aftermath
of Tet, public opinion in the United States decisively turned against the
Vietnam War. As 1968 began  the third year of US ground-troop fighting
in Vietnam  US military leadership was still confident that a favorable
peace agreement would soon be forced on the North Vietnamese and their allies
in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong. Despite growing calls at home for an immediate
US withdrawal, President Lyndon Johnson's administration planned to keep
the pressure on the communists through increased bombing and other attrition
strategies. General William Westmoreland, commander of US operations in
Vietnam, claimed to see clearly "the light at the end of the tunnel," and
Johnson hoped that soon the shell-shocked communists would stumble out of
the jungle to the bargaining table. However, on January 30, 1968, the Viet
Cong and North Vietnamese launched their massive Tet Offensive all across
South Vietnam. It was the first day of Tet  Vietnam's lunar new year
and most important holiday  and many South Vietnamese soldiers, expecting
an unofficial truce, had gone home.
The Viet Cong were known for guerrilla tactics and had never launched an
offensive on this scale; consequently, US and South Vietnamese forces were
caught completely by surprise. In the first day of the offensive, tens of
thousands of Viet Cong soldiers, supported by North Vietnamese forces, overran
the five largest cities of South Vietnam, scores of smaller cities and towns,
and a number of US and South Vietnamese bases. The Viet Cong struck at Saigon
 South Vietnam's capital  and even attacked, and for several
hours held, the US embassy there. The action was caught by US television
news crews, which also recorded the brutal impromptu street execution of
a Viet Cong rebel by a South Vietnamese military official. As the US and
South Vietnamese fought to regain control of Saigon, the cities of Hué,
Dalat, Kontum, and Quangtri fell to the communists. US and South Vietnamese
forces recaptured most of these cities within a few days, but Hué was fiercely
contested by the communist soldiers occupying it.
After 26 days of costly house-to-house fighting, the South Vietnamese flag
is raised again above Hué on 24 February, and the Tet Offensive came to
an end. During the communist occupation of Hué, numerous South Vietnamese
government officials and civilians were massacred, and many civilians died
in US bombing attacks that preceded the liberation of the city. In many
respects, the Tet Offensive was a military disaster for the communists:
They suffered 10 times more casualties than their enemy and failed to control
any of the areas captured in the opening days of the offensive. They had
hoped that the offensive would ignite a popular uprising against South Vietnam's
government and the US occupation. This did not occur. In addition, the Viet
Cong, which had come out into the open for the first time in the war, were
all but wiped out. However, because
the Tet Offensive crushed US hopes for an imminent end to the conflict,
it dealt a fatal blow to the US military mission in Vietnam. In Tet's aftermath,
President Johnson came under fire on all sides for his Vietnam policy. General
Westmoreland requested 200'000 more soldiers to overwhelm the communists,
and a national uproar ensued after this request was disclosed, forcing Johnson
to recall Westmoreland to Washington. On 31 March, Johnson announced that
the United States would begin de-escalation in Vietnam, halt the bombing
of North Vietnam, and seek a peace agreement to end the conflict. In the
same speech, he also announced that he would not seek reelection to the
presidency, citing what he perceived to be his responsibility in creating
the national division over Vietnam.

1967 Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth writes in
a letter: 'The statement that God is dead comes from Nietzsche and has recently
been trumpeted abroad by some German and American theologians. But the good
Lord has not died of this; He who dwells in the heaven laughs at them.'
[as well as anyone who notices that it is Nietzsche that is dead!]1967 El Cantar de Mio Cid, el manuscrito más valioso
de la Biblioteca Nacional de España, es adquirido en 10 millones
de pesetas por la Fundación Juan March. 1966 Coup
ousts President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana (celebrated as Liberation Day) 
El general Joseph A. Ankrah encabeza un golpe de Estado en Ghana, aprovechando
que el presidente Kwame Nkrumah se encuentra de viaje por Asia.
1965 East German President Ulbricht visits Egypt.
1962 General mobilization in Indonesia over New-Guinea. 1960 Italian government of Segni falls.
1955 Pact of Baghdad between Iraq and Turkey signed
1950 Labour wins British parliamentary election.
1949 Israel and Egypt sign an armistice agreement.  Se firma
en la isla de Rodas el armisticio que pone fin a la primera guerra árabe-israelí.
1949 El líder sionista Chaim Weizmann es elegido
presidente de Israel. 1948 Communist Party seizes
complete control of Czechoslovakia.

^
1946 Perón elected Argentine
President in landslide victory
In Argentina, Juan Domingo Perón, who led a military coup in
1943, is elected president by a wide electoral majority. The year
before, Perón was imprisoned after declaring himself a presidential
candidate, but mass demonstrations by Argentine workers and public
appeals from his charismatic wife, Eva Duarte de Perón, forced
his release. After becoming president, Perón constructs an
impressive populist alliance that includes workers, the military,
nationalists, clerics, and industrialists. Perón's vision of
self-sufficiency for his country wins wide support from the Argentine
people, but over the next decade he becomes increasingly authoritarian,
jailing political opponents, restricting freedom of the press, and
organizing trade unions into a militant groups along Fascist lines.
In 1952, the president's greatest political resource, Eva Perón,
dies, and his unusual social coalition collapses, leading to a military
coup in September of 1955 that forces him to flee the country. However,
his economic reforms remain popular with the majority of Argentineans
long after his departure, and in 1973 he returns triumphantly to Argentina,
called back by the military to end factional violence. Perón
subsequently wins another overwhelming electoral victory, and his
third wife, Isabelita Perón, is elected as vice president.
After his sudden death in the following year, Isabelita succeeds him,
becoming the Western Hemisphere's first female head of state.

1945 US soldiers liberate Manila from Japanese control
during World War II. 1945 Egypt and Syria declares
war on Nazi-Germany.

^1944
US guerrillas attack in northern Burma
Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill's guerrilla force, nicknamed "Merrill's Marauders,"
begin a campaign in northern Burma. In August 1942, President Franklin
D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed to create
an American ground unit whose sole purpose would be to engage in a
"long-range penetration mission" in Japanese-occupied Burma. This
mission would consist of cutting Japanese communications and supply
lines and otherwise throwing the enemy's positions into chaos. It
was hoped that this commando force could thus prepare the way for
Gen. Joseph Stillwell's Chinese American Force to reopen the Burma
Road, which was closed in April 1942 by the Japanese invaders, and
once again allow supplies and war material into China through this
route. Within the military,
a type of "Help Wanted" ad was put up with the president's authority,
an appeal for applicants to participate in a "dangerous and hazardous
mission." About 3000 soldiers volunteered from stateside units to
create what was officially called the 5307th Composite Unit, code
named "Galahad." It would go into history as Merrill's Marauders,
after Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill, their commander.
Brigadier General Merrill trained his men in the art of guerrilla
warfare in the jungles of India, for secrecy's sake. The commando
force was formed into six combat units  Red, White, Blue, Green,
Orange, and Khaki  with 400 men in each (the remaining 600 men
or so were part of a rear-echelon headquarters that remained in India
to coordinate the air-drops of equipment to the men in the field).
The Marauders' mission began
with a 1600-km walk through dense jungle, without artillery support,
into Burma. On 24 February 1944, they began their Burmese campaign,
which, when done, consisted of five major and 30 minor engagements
with a far more numerous Japanese enemy. They had to carry their supplies
on their backs and on pack mules, and were resupplied only with airdrops
in the middle of the jungle. Merrill's Marauders succeeded in maneuvering
behind Japanese forces to cause the disruptions necessary to throw
the enemy into confusion. They were so successful, the Marauders managed
even to capture the Myitkyina Airfield in northern Burma.
When their mission was completed, all surviving Merrill's Marauders
had to be evacuated to hospitals to be treated for everything from
exhaustion and various tropical diseases to malnutrition or A.O.E.
("Accumulation of Everything"). They were awarded the Distinguished
Unit Citation in July 1944, which was re-designated the Presidential
Unit Citation in 1966. Every member of the commando force also received
the Bronze Star, a very rare distinction for an entire unit. Merrill
remained in the Far East and was made an aide to General Stillwell.

1944 Argentina coup by Juan Perón minister of war

^1944
Mass deportation of Chechens and Ingush.^top^
On February 23-24, the Chechens and
their neighbors the Ingush are systematically rounded up by Russian
troops and shipped off to the east in freight trains. The Soviet census
of 1939 had counted 407,690 Chechens and 92,074 Ingush; altogether
some 400,000 Chechens and Ingush are deported to Soviet Central Asia,
the majority to Kazakhstan. It is estimated that 30% or more died
during their detention and transport from the Caucasus or within the
first year of their forcible resettlement.
This action was reasoned as follows: "During the Great Patriotic
War, and especially during the time the German-Fascist army was operating
in the Caucasus, many Chechens and Ingush betrayed their motherland,
went over to the side of the fascist occupiers, enlisted in detachments
of saboteurs and spies sent by the Germans into the rear of the Red
Army, in response to German orders formed armed bands to fight against
Soviet power, for several years have also taken part in armed actions
against the Soviet authorities, and for a long time without engaging
in honest work have conducted bandit raids against the collective
farms of neighboring regions, robbing and killing Soviet people. Therefore,
the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet orders: Deportation to other regions
of the USSR of all Chechens and Ingush living on or adjacent to the
territory of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, and liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush
ASSR." The behavior
of the Chechens in exile in Kazakhstan has been described in "The
Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "there was
one nation that would not give in, would not acquire the mental habits
of submission  and not just individual rebels among them, but
the whole nation to a man. These were the Chechens. They were capable
of rustling cattle, robbing a house, or sometimes simply taking what
they wanted by force. They respected only rebels. And here is an extraordinary
thing  everyone was afraid of them. No one could stop them from
living as they did. The regime which had ruled the land for thirty
years could not force them to respect its laws."
On February 25, 1956, in Khrushchev's speech to the 20th Party Congress
exposing Stalin's crimes, he mentioned the Chechens among the peoples
deported toward the close of World War II, commenting: "no reasonable
man can grasp how it is possible to make whole nations responsible
for hostile activity, including women, children, old people, Communists
and Komsomols, to use mass repression against them, and to expose
them to misery and suffering for the hostile acts of individuals or
groups of individuals." On July 16, 1956, the Presidium of the
USSR Supreme Soviet issued a decree abolishing the legal restrictions
that had been imposed on the deported Chechens, but specifically ruled
out claims for return to their homeland and restitution of confiscated
property. On January 8, 1957,
a further decree of the Presidium reconstituted the Chechen-Ingush
ASSR, and cancelled the ban on the return of Chechens and Ingush.
The horror of their mass deportation and the misery of their resettlement
regimen in Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan have not been forgotten or forgiven
by the Chechens

^1917
US is informed that Germany incites Mexico to war against the US.
British authorities give to the US ambassador
to Britain a copy of the "Zimmermann Note," a coded message from German
foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff,
the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and
deciphered by British intelligence, Zimmermann stated that, in the
event of war with the United States, Mexico should be asked to enter
the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised to restore
to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
On March 1, the US State Department would publish the note, and American
public opinion would be galvanized against Germany.
On 22 February, the US Congress had passed a $250 million arms appropriations
bill intended to make the United States ready for war with Germany,
which, on 31 January had announced the renewal of unlimited submarine
warfare in the Atlantic German torpedo-armed submarines were prepared
to attack any and all ships, including civilian passenger carriers,
said to be sited in war-zone waters. On 3 February, the United States
broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that
the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat.
None of the 25 Americans on board were killed, and all were later
picked up by a British steamer.
When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson had pledged
neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority
of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America's closest
trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States
and Germany over the latter's attempted quarantine of the British
isles. Several US ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk
by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted
warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the
war zone around Britain. One
month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the
William P. Frye, a private American vessel that was transporting
grain to England when it disappeared. President Wilson was outraged,
but the German government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate
mistake. The Germans' most formidable naval weapon was the U-boat,
a submarine far more sophisticated than those built by other nations
at the time. The typical U-boat was 65 m long, carried 35 men and
12 torpedoes, and could travel underwater for two hours at a time.
In the first few years of World War I, the U-boats took a terrible
toll on Allied shipping. In early May 1915, several New York newspapers
published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans
traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their
own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement
of the imminent sailing of the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner
from New York to Liverpool.
On 07 May, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning just off the
coast of Ireland. Of the 1959 passengers, 1198 were killed, including
128 Americans. The German government maintained that the Lusitania
was carrying munitions, but the US demanded reparations and an end
to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August,
Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking
unarmed vessels but in November sunk an Italian liner without warning,
killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. Public opinion in the
United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany. In 1917,
Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies,
announces the resumption of unrestricted warfare.
In late March, Germany sunk four more US merchant ships, and on April
2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration
of war against Germany. On 04 April, the Senate voted 82 to six to
declare war against Germany. Two days later, the House of Representatives
endorsed the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally
entered World War I. On 26 June, the first 14'000 US infantrymen landed
in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody
stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America's well-supplied
forces into the conflict was a major turning point in the war. When
the war finally ended, on 11 November 1918, more than two million
American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe,
and some 50'000 of these men had lost their lives.  During
World War I, British authorities give Walter H. Page, the US ambassador
to Britain, a copy of the "Zimmermann Note," a coded message from
German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann to Count Johann von Bernstorff,
the German ambassador to Mexico. In the telegram, intercepted and
deciphered by British intelligence in late January, Zimmermann states
that, in the event of war with the United States, Mexico should be
asked to enter the conflict as a German ally. In return, Germany promised
to restore to Mexico the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico, and
Arizona. After receiving the telegram, Ambassador Page promptly sends
a copy to US President Woodrow Wilson, who, on 01 March 1917, allows
the US State Department to publish the note. The press initially treats
the telegram as a hoax, but Arthur Zimmermann himself confirms its
authenticity. The Zimmermann Note helps turn US public opinion, already
severely strained by repeated German attacks on US ships, firmly against
Germany. On 02 April, President Wilson, who had initially sought a
peaceful resolution to end World War I, urges the immediate US entrance
into the war. Four days later, Congress formally declares war against
Germany.

^1869
Morrill's Tariff increase
The US Congress passes the Morrill Tariff Act, which increases duties
on imports to an average rate of 47%. The legislation was also another
victory for Congressman Justin Morrill, who, starting in 1861, had
drafted a series of tariffs designed to protect US industry from the
specter of international competition. However, as some historians
have noted, overseas rivals didn't pose much of a threat to American
manufacturers in 1869; Morrill's latest tariff seemingly padded industrialists’
pocketbooks at the expense of the poor, who were forced to pay ever-higher
prices for import goods. Over the next few years, though, lawmakers
reversed course and rolled back some of the protectionist duties.
The Tariff of 1870 placed 130 items  primarily raw materials
 on the "free list," while tariff law passed in 1872 effectively
slashed rates on manufacturing goods by 10%.

^1868
US President Andrew Johnson impeached
The US House of Representatives votes, 126 to 47, eleven articles
of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson, nine of which cite
Johnson's removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in violation
of the Tenure of Office Act. The House vote makes President Johnson
the first president to be impeached in US history. At the outbreak
of the Civil War in 1861, Andrew Johnson, a senator from Tennessee,
was the only US senator from a seceding state who remained loyal to
the Union. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him military
governor of Tennessee, and in 1864, he was elected vice president
of the United States. Inaugurated after Lincoln's assassination in
April of 1865, President Johnson enacted a lenient Reconstruction
policy for the defeated South, including almost total amnesty to ex-Confederates,
a program of rapid restoration of US state status for the seceded
states, and the approval of new, local Southern governments, which
were able to legislate "Black Codes" that preserved the system of
slavery in all but its name.
The Republican-dominated Congress greatly opposed Johnson's Reconstruction
program, and on 02 March 1867, passed the Tenure of Office Act over
the president's veto. The bill prohibited the president from removing
officials confirmed by the Senate without senatorial approval, and
was designed to shield members of Johnson's cabinet like Secretary
of War Edwin M. Stanton who had been a leading Republican radical
in the Lincoln administration. In the fall of 1867, President Johnson
attempted to test the constitutionality of the act by replacing Stanton
with General Ulysses S. Grant. However, the US Supreme Court refused
to rule on the case and Grant turned the office back to Stanton after
the Senate passed a measure refusing the dismissal. On 21 February
1868, Johnson decided to rid himself of Stanton once and for all and
appointed General Lorenzo Thomas, an individual far less favorable
to the Congress than Grant, as Secretary of War. Stanton refused to
yield, barricading himself in his office, and the House of Representatives,
which had already discussed impeachment after Johnson's first dismissal
of Stanton, initiated formal impeachment proceedings against the president.
On 24 February the House votes eleven impeachment articles against
Johnson, and on 13 March, the Senate impeachment trial of President
Andrew Johnson began under the direction of US Supreme Court Chief
Justice Salmon P. Chase. On 26 May, the trial ended with Johnson's
opponents narrowly failing to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary
to convict him.

1864 Skirmish near Canton, Mississippi.
1864 Battle of Tunnel Hill GA (Buzzard's Roost)
1863 Forrest's raid on Brentwood TN. 1863 Arizona
Territory created1852 Between January 15th and
February 24th a total of 1378 railroad cars were drawn by horses across
the frozen Susquehanna River (the ferry could not pass) to engines waiting
at Havre De Grace MD. 1848 King Louis-Philippe
abdicates, 2nd French republic declared.  Tras la revuelta de 1848,
la familia real borbónica huye y jamás vuelve a reinar en Francia.

^1836
Travis
vows victory or death in besieged Alamo.During the Texas War for Independence,
on 23 February 1836, Mexican president and general Antonio Lopez de Santa
Anna orders the first assault on the fortified Alamo mission in San Antonio,
Texas, held by 144 Texans and Americans under the leadership of Colonel
William B. Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett. [flag flown by the
Texans at the Alamo >]
On 24 February 1836, Texan Colonel William
Travis sends a desperate plea for help for the besieged defenders of the
Alamo, ending the message with the famous last words, "Victory or Death."
Travis' path to the Alamo began five years earlier when he moved to the
Mexican state of Texas to start fresh after a failed marriage in Alabama.
Trained as a lawyer, he established a law office in Anahuac, where he quickly
gained a reputation for his willingness to defy the local Mexican officials.
In 1832, a minor confrontation with the Mexican government landed Travis
in jail. When he was freed a month later, many Anglo settlers hailed him
as a hero. As Anglo-American resentment toward the Mexican government grew,
Travis was increasingly viewed as a strong leader among those seeking an
independent Texan republic.
When the Texas revolution began in 1835,
Travis joined the revolutionary army. In February 1936, he was made a lieutenant
colonel and given command of the regular Texas troops in San Antonio. On
23 February, the Mexican army under Santa Ana arrived in the city unexpectedly.
Travis and his troops retreated to the Alamo, an old Spanish mission and
fortress, where they were soon joined by James Bowie's volunteer force.
The Mexican army of 5000 soldiers badly outnumbered the several hundred
defenders of the Alamo. Their determination was fierce, though, and when
Santa Ana asked for their surrender the following day, Travis answered with
a cannon shot.
Furious, Santa Ana began a siege. Recognizing
he was doomed to defeat without reinforcements, Travis dispatched via couriers
several messages asking for help. The most famous was addressed to "The
People of Texas and All Americans in the World" and was signed "Victory
or Death." Unfortunately, it was to be death for the defenders: only 32
men from nearby Gonzales responded to Travis' call for reinforcements. On
March 6, the Mexicans stormed the Alamo and Travis, Bowie, and about 190
of their comrades were killed. The Texans made Santa Ana pay for his victory,
though, having claimed at least 600 of his men during the attack.
Although Travis' defense of the Alamo was
a miserable failure militarily, symbolically it was a tremendous success.
"Remember the Alamo" quickly became the rallying cry for the Texas revolution.
By April, Travis' countrymen had beaten the Mexicans and won their independence.
Travis' daring defiance of the overwhelmingly superior Mexican forces has
since become the stuff of myth, and a facsimile of his famous call for help
is on permanent display at the Texas State Library in Austin.
Texan Colonel William Travis sends a desperate
plea for help for the besieged defenders of the Alamo, ending the message
with the famous last words, "Victory or Death." Travis' path to the Alamo
began five years earlier when he moved to the Mexican state of Texas to
start fresh after a failed marriage in Alabama. Trained as a lawyer, he
established a law office in Anahuac, where he quickly gained a reputation
for his willingness to defy the local Mexican officials. In 1832, a minor
confrontation with the Mexican government landed Travis in jail. When he
was freed a month later, many Anglo settlers hailed him as a hero. As Anglo-American
resentment toward the Mexican government grew, Travis was increasingly viewed
as a strong leader among those seeking an independent Texan republic. When
the Texas revolution began in 1835, Travis joined the revolutionary army.
In February 1936, he was made a lieutenant colonel and given command of
the regular Texas troops in San Antonio. On 23 February, the Mexican army
under Santa Ana arrived in the city unexpectedly. Travis and his troops
retreated to the Alamo, an old Spanish mission and fortress, where they
were soon joined by James Bowie's volunteer force. The Mexican army of 5000
soldiers badly outnumbered the several hundred defenders of the Alamo. Their
determination was fierce, though, and when Santa Ana asked for their surrender
the following day, Travis answered with a cannon shot. Furious, Santa Ana
began a siege. Recognizing he was doomed to defeat without reinforcements,
Travis dispatched via couriers several messages asking for help. The most
famous was addressed to "The People of Texas and All Americans in the World"
and was signed "Victory or Death." Unfortunately, it was to be death for
the defenders: only 32 men from nearby Gonzales responded to Travis' call
for reinforcements. On 06 March, the Mexicans stormed the Alamo and Travis,
Bowie, and about 190 of their comrades were killed. The Texans made Santa
Ana pay for his victory, though, having claimed at least 600 of his men
during the attack. Although Travis' defense of the Alamo was a miserable
failure militarily, symbolically it was a tremendous success. "Remember
the Alamo" quickly became the rallying cry for the Texas revolution. By
April, Travis' countrymen had beaten the Mexicans and won their independence.
Travis' daring defiance of the overwhelmingly superior Mexican forces has
since become the stuff of myth, and a facsimile of his famous call for help
is on permanent display at the Texas State Library in Austin.
After gaining independence from Spain in
1821, Mexico welcomed foreign settlers to sparsely populated Texas, and
a large group of Americans led by Stephen F. Austin settled along the Brazos
River. The Americans soon outnumbered the resident Mexicans, and by the
1830s, attempts by the Mexican government to regulate these semi-autonomous
communities were, in their opinion, against the 1824 Mexican constitution,
and led them to rebellion. In October of 1835, residents of Gonzales, eighty
kilometers east of San Antonio, responded to Santa Anna’s demand that they
return a cannon loaned for defense against Indian attack by discharging
it against the Mexican troops sent to reclaim it.
Two months later, Texas volunteers commanded
by Ben Milam drove Mexican troops out of San Antonio and settled in around
the Alamo, a mission compound adapted to military purposes after the 1790s.
In January of 1836, Santa Anna concentrated
a force of several thousand men south of the Rio Grande and General Sam
Houston, the commander of the Texas revolutionary troops, ordered the Alamo
abandoned.
However, Colonel Jim Bowie realized that
the Alamo’s twenty-five captured cannons could not be removed before Santa
Anna’s arrival, so he remained entrenched with his men in order to give
Houston time to raise a revolutionary army. On 02 February, Bowie and his
twenty-five men were joined by a small cavalry company under Colonel William
Travis, bringing the total number of Alamo defenders to about one hundred
and thirty. One week later, Davy Crockett arrived in command of fourteen
Tennessee Mounted Volunteers.
On 23 February, Santa Anna and some 4000
Mexican troops besieged the Alamo, and the Mexican leader ordered the former
mission bombarded with cannon and rifle fire for twelve days. The next day,
in the chaos of the siege, Colonel Travis smuggled out a
letter that read:

Commandancy of the Alamo
Bexar, Feby. 24th, 1836

To the People of Texas and all Americans in the World 
Fellow Citizens and Compatriots 

I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa
Anna  I have sustained a continual Bombardment and cannonade
for 24 hours and have not lost a man  The enemy has demanded
a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put
to the sword, if the fort is taken  I have answered the demand
with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls
 I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in
the name of Liberty, of patriotism and everything dear to the American
character, to come to our aid with all despatch  The enemy
is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to
three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected,
I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like
a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that
of his country  Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis Lt. Col. comdt.

P.S. The Lord is on our side  When the enemy appeared in sight
we had not three bushels of corn  We have since found in deserted
houses 80 or 90 bushels, and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of
Beeves 
Travis

Send this to San Felipe by Express night and day 

On 02
March, the last Texan reinforcements from nearby Gonzales broke through
the enemy’s lines and into the Alamo, bringing the total defenders to one
hundred and eighty-five. The same day, Texas’ revolutionary government formally
declared its independence from Mexico.
In the early morning of 06 March, Santa Anna
ordered the first assault on the Alamo. Travis’s artillery decimated the
first and then the second Mexican charge, but within ninety minutes the
Texans were overwhelmed, and the Alamo was taken. All 188 Texan defenders
were killed, along with some 1544 of Santa Anna’s troops. The only survivors
of the Alamo were a mother, her child, and an African-American slave.
Six weeks later, a large Texan army under
Sam Houston surprised Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto. Shouting "Remember
the Alamo!" the Texans defeated the Mexicans and captured Santa Anna. Texas
independence was won.

^1582
Gregorian Calendar is promulgated.
Pope Gregory XIII publishes a bull which announces the New Style (Gregorian)
calendar which corrects the errors of the Julian (or Old Style) calendar
created by Julius Caesar in 46 BC.  The Julian calendar
year of 365.25 was too long, since the tropical year is
365.242199 days. The papal bull decrees that, in order to bring the
vernal equinox back to 21 March, 05 October 1582 (Julian) will be
followed by 15 October 1582 (Gregorian). The years divisible by 100
but not by 400 will no longer be leap years. The bull also promulgates
rules for calculating the date of Easter. The
new calendar was adopted on the date set by the bull only in some
of the Catholic countries: the Italian countries, Spain, Portugal,
France, and Luxembourg. In Great Britain and its possessions, the
Gregorian calendar came into use on 14 September 1752 (Gregorian),
the day following 02 September 1752 (Julian). Among the last countries
to make the switch were the Soviet Union in 1918 and Greece in 1923
(resulting in much confusion about their dates since 15 October 1582.
On this site an attempt is made to list those events only their Gregorian
dates while mentioning the Julian date. Please report
any errors which you may find)

1581 Pope Gregory XIII approves the results of his calendar
reform commission whose principal members are the Neapolitan astronomer
Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi (died in 1576) and the German Jesuit mathematician
Christopher Clavius (1537-1612). 1538 King Ferdinand
of Austria and King János Zápolyai of Hungary sign Peace of Grosswardein. 1530 first imperial coronation by a Pope, Charles V crowned
by Clement V. 1528 János Zápolyai, Hungarian king,
recognizes Sultan Suleiman's suzerainty. 1527 Ferdinand
of Austria crowned as king of Bohemia  Tras el fallecimiento de Luis
II de Mohács, su cuñado Fernando y su esposa Ana de Hungría son coronados
reyes de Hungría y de Bohemia.1524 El papa Clemente
VII concede a la Inquisición de Aragón poder jurisdiccional sobre la sodomía,
conlleve o no herejía. 1510 Pope Julius II excommunicates
the republic of Venice 1389 Battle at Falköping
Danes defeat King Albert of Sweden. 1296 Pope Boniface
VIII degree Clericis Iaicos 1208 Saint Francis
of Assisi [1182 – 03 Oct 1226], received his vocation in the Italian
village of Portiuncula. He founded the Franciscans the following year, and
is regarded by many as the greatest of all Christian saints of the second
millenium.0303 The first official Roman edict for
the persecution of Christians is issued by Roman Emperor Diocletian [245-316],
incited by the caesar Galerius Valerius Maximianus. When Diocletian abdicated
on 01 May 305, Galerius became augustus (senior emperor) of the East and
continued the persecution, In the winter of 310-311, however, he became
incapacitated with a painful disease. Fearing, perhaps, that his illness
was the vengeance of the Christian God, he issued, on 30 April 311, an edict
grudgingly granting toleration. Shortly afterward he died.

2006
Two guards, and Muhammed Al-Gaith (or Mohamed Saleh Al-Ghaith),
24; and Abdullah Al-Tuwaijri (or Abdullah Abdul Aziz Al-Tuwaijeri),
22; who are driving two pickup-truck bombs which explode when fired upon
by guards at the Abqaiq oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, which is
not damaged. Some guards and workers are injured. — (060228)2005 Jessica Marie Lunsford [06 Oct 1995–] [photo >],
killed by John Evander Couey [19 Sep 1958~], who had abducted her in the
early hours from her bedroom in Homosassa, Citrus County, Florida, and then
sexually molested her. Her fate is not known until after the police checks
on known sex offenders in the area, find that Couey is gone, violating parole,
and he is found in Georgia, where he confesses on 18 March 2005, and her
body is found at 03:30 (08:30 UT) on 19 March 2005, some 150 meters from
Jessica's home and, across the street, the home of Couey's half-sister,
where he would sometimes stay. Couey has a criminal history dating to the
1970s, including 24 arrests on charges of burglary, indecent exposure, fraud,
insufficient funds, larceny, and carrying a concealed weapon. During a 1978
Citrus County burglary, Couey grabbed a girl and kissed her. Couey was sentenced
to 10 years in prison but was paroled in 1980. He was designated a sexual
offender after a 1991 arrest in Kissimmee for fondling a child.

2005 Mark Allen Wilson, 52; Maribel Estrada, 41; and her ex-husband,
David Hernandez Arroyo Sr., 43, wearing a flak jacket and a bullet-proof
vest, who, at 13:25 (19:25 UT), on the steps of the courthouse in Tyler,
Texas, meets his ex-wife Maribel and their adult son, David Arroyo Jr.,
about a proceeding involving unpaid child support, then shoots some 50 AK-47
rounds at them, at bystander Wilson, who had a concealed gun permit and
who had started shooting at Arroyo Sr. diverting him from finishing off
Arroyo Jr., and at policemen, who confront him and then pursue him for 3
kilometers as he flees in his pickup truck and kill him after they catch
up with him off US Highway 271 near Duncan Street and he keeps shooting
at them. Arroyo Jr., five policemen, and two bystanders are wounded.
Estrada and Arroyo divorced in 2004 after 22 years of marriage. He had recently
threatened to kill her if she pursued her demand for the child support.

2005 Seven Taliban mujahideen, killed from US military
helicopters in a raid in Khost province, Afghanistan.

2005 Four Iraqi
National Guardsmen, by two roadside bombs in Qaim, Iraq.

2005 Fifteen policemen and a suicide car bomber wearing
a police uniform lieutenant, inside the main police compound in Tikrit,
Iraq, at the time of the morning shift change. 22 policemen are wounded.

2005 Two persons in a bakery in eastern Baghdad, Iraq,
fired upon by terrorists. One person is wounded.

2005 Two
policemen in a patrol, by a roadside bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq. Three
policemen are injured.

2005 Six persons, including a suicide
bomber, in front of in front of the local headquarters of the Shiite
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, in Iskandariyah, Iraq.
Targeted police Col. Salman Ali in unhurt.2004 Some 500 persons in 6.5 magnitude earthquake at 02:28
(local = UT) with epicenter 2 km deep at 35°14'N 3°58'W under the Mediterranean
near Al Hoceima, Morocco. Devastation is worst in nearby villages Ait Kamra,
Tamassint, and Imzourn, where some 30'000 persons lived in adobe houses.

2003 Bernard Loiseau, 52 [1999 photo >],
suicide by hunting rifle, in Saulieu (Côte d'Or), France. His rating
as a chef dropped from 19/20 to 17/20 in the GaultMillau guide published
earlier in February 2003.

2003 Billy Dewayne Copeland,
26, shot by police at about 10:30 (15:30 UT) in a gunfight during an 8-km
chase on I-65 southbound in Fultondale, Alabama, where Copeland and his
accomplice who drives the stolen car had just robbed the town's only bank,
the Bank of Alabama on Decatur Highway. The driver takes exit 263 at 33rd
Avenue North in Birmingham and crashes two blocks away in the 3200 block
of 17th Street North (zip 35207-4210), where he resumes the gunfight and
is wounded and arrested.

2003 At least 260 persons
in magnitude 6.3 earthquake at 10:04 (02:04 UT) with epicenter 33-km-deep
at 39º38'N 77º12'E, near Chongku Qiake in the southwest of Xinjiang
province, China, near the Kyrgyzstan border. Over 1000 are injured. More
than 30'000 are homeless. The temperature drops to –10ºC at night.

2003 Christopher
Hill, born on 06 February 1912, British Marxist historian of
17th-century England. Author of The World Turned Upside Down (1972)

1933 Bertini,
mathematician.1920 Paul Albert Girard,
French artist born on 13 December 1839.

^
1916 More casualties at Verdun as
Pétain takes command.
During the
First World War Verdun was a fortified French garrison town on
the River Meuse 200 km east of Paris. In December 1915, General Erich von Falkenhayn, Chief of Staff
of the German Army, decided to attack Verdun. Although he admitted
he would be unable to break through at these point on the Western Front, he argued that in defending
Verdun, the Germans would "bleed the French army white".
The German attack on Verdun
started on 21 February 1916. A million troops, led by Crown Prince Wilhelm, faced only about 200'000
French defenders. The following day the French was forced to retreat
to their second line of trenches. By 24 February the French had moved
back to the third line and were only 8km from Verdun.
On 24th February, General Henri-Philippe Pétain was appointed
commander of the Verdun sector. He gave orders that no more withdrawals
would take place. He arranged for every spare French soldier to this
part of the Western Front. Of the 330 infantry regiments
of the French Army, 259 eventually fought at Verdun.
The German advance was brought
to a halt at the end of February. On 6 March, the German Fifth Army
launched a new attack at Verdun. The Germans advanced 3km before they
were stopped in front of the area around Mort Homme Hill. The French
held this strategic point until it was finally secured by the Germans
on 29 May, and Fort Vaux fell on 7th June, after a long siege.
Further attacks continued throughout
the summer and early autumn. However, the scale of the German attacks
were reduced by the need to transfer troops to defend their front-line
at the Somme. The French now counter-attacked and
General Charles Mangin became a national hero when
the forts at Douaumont and Vaux were recaptured by 2 November 1916.
Over the next six weeks the French infantry gained another 2 km at
Verdun. Verdun, the longest
battle of the First World War, ended on the 18th December. The
French Army lost about 550'000 men at Verdun.
It is estimated that the German Army suffered 434'000 casualties.
About half of all casualties at Verdun were killed.

^
1563 François de Lorraine, 2ème
duc de Guise, duc d'Aumale, prince de Joinville, “le Balafré”,
dies on his 44th birthday after being mortally wounded by a Huguenot
assassin. He was the most famous member of the House of Guise, a man
of action, a political intriguer, a soldier loved by his men and feared
by his enemies. He was generally loyal to the French crown and served
it well. As comte d'Aumale he fought
in the army of François I [12 Sep 1494 – 21 Mar 1547]
and was wounded almost fatally at the siege of Boulogne (1545); there
he received the scar that won him his byname. In 1547 his countship
of Aumale was turned into a duchy. On the 1547 accession of Henri
II he was made master of the king's hunt and great chamberlain. He
had to share the King's favor, however, with the constable Anne de
Montmorency [15 Mar 1493 – 12 Nov 1567].
François succeeded to the duchy of Guise in April 1550 and
soon after became prince de Joinville. In 1552 he was placed in charge
of the defense of Metz against the emperor Charles V and obliged the
Emperor to withdraw; on 13 August 1554 Guise again distinguished himself
by routing an imperial army at Renty.
On account of the jealousy of the Montmorencies, he was sent in 1557
to conquer Naples and would have added another to the long roll of
reputations ruined by Italy, had he not been suddenly recalled to
repel a Spanish army, which had invaded northern France; it was no
mean achievement that he was able to bring back his army virtually
intact. He attacked the English in Calais and within six days forced
them to surrender (06 Jan 1558); he then completed their expulsion
from France by capturing Guines and Ham.
The 1559 accession of François II [31 Mar 1519 – 10 Jul
1559] produced a change of ministers: Montmorency was replaced as
grand master of the royal household by Guise, who shared the chief
power in the state with his brother Charles, cardinal de Lorraine.
The Bourbons, as first princes of the blood, had a stronger claim
to being the king's advisers but were deficient in political sense.
Their leader, Antoine de Bourbon, was principally interested in recovering
his wife's kingdom of Navarre from Spain and would not ally himself
with Montmorency, whom he accused of having overlooked his interests
at the recent peace talks. Anthony's brother Louis, prince de Condé,
however, was more inclined to take advantage of the discontent caused
among the nobles and Huguenots by the government's economic and religious
reforms. With Condé's approval a conspiracy was formed to overthrow
the Guises; but the Guises got wind of the plot. The Duc de Guise
was appointed lieutenant general of the kingdom with full powers to
deal with the conspirators (17 Mar 1560). His ruthless handling of
the situation intensified hatred of the Guises in certain quarters.
On the accession of the young Charles
IX to the French crown, the queen mother, Catherine de Médicis,
emerged as the dominant figure in the state. By assuming the regency
herself and restoring Montmorency to favor, she indicated clearly
that Guise domination would no longer be tolerated. The subsequent
rise of the Bourbons, who were leaders of the Huguenot movement, and
the policy of religious toleration pursued by the government brought
about the dramatic reconciliation of Guise and Montmorency (March
1561); together with the Marshal de Saint-André (Jacques d'Albon)
they formed a “triumvirate” in defense of the Catholic
faith. The first of the resultant Wars of Religion again showed Guise
to be an outstanding soldier. His timely intervention in the Battle
of Dreux (19 Dec 1561) ensured the defeat of the Huguenots. When Montmorency
was captured, Guise became the sole commander of the royal army; and
when Condé was captured, the admiral Gaspard de Coligny took
over the direction of the Huguenot troops. As lieutenant general of
the kingdom, Guise moved to besiege Orléans; but in February
1563 he was mortally wounded by a Huguenot assassin.

^
1525 Some 8700 dead in Battle at
Pavia. The troops of the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor
Charles
V [24 Feb 1500 – 21 Sep 1558] beat those of the French king,
François I [12 Sep 1494 – 31 Mar 1547], who is taken prisoner.
It was the decisive battle engagement
of the war in Italy between François I and Charles V, in which
the French army of 28'000 was almost annihilated and François
I himself, commanding the French army, was taken prisoner. François
I was sent to Madrid, where, the following year, he concluded peace
and surrendered French claims to Italy.
The French army had been besieging the city of Pavia, 30 kilometers
south of Milan, when the 23'000-man Habsburg army under Fernando Francisco
de Avalos, marchese di Pescara, arrived to aid the 6000-man garrison
and lift the siege. A hasty French attack was on the point of encircling
Pescara when 1500 Spanish arquebusiers opened fire on the rear of
the French cavalry and riddled the ranks of the French and their allied
Swiss infantry. The French attacks thereafter, made by German and
Swiss mercenary infantry, were routed. The Spanish counterattack,
supported by the Pavia garrison, which joined in the battle, completely
swept the French from the field, destroying the army of François
I army as a fighting force in the process. Spanish hegemony in Italy
dates from this battle.

^
1955 Steven Paul
Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer.
Jobs, the controversial co-founder of Apple Computer, started out
selling his friend Stephen Wozniak's computers door-to-door at electronic
hobbyist shops. By 1979, Apple Computer had become the fastest growing
company in history, worth more than $1 billion. That year, Jobs led
a team of several Apple developers, working on a new project called
Lisa, on a visit to Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where the team
saw the Alto, an early computer with a graphical user interface using
icons, a mouse, and built-in networking capacity. Both the Lisa and
the Macintosh adopted key elements of the Alto. Jobs, whose impulsive
personal style irritated some of Apple's key managers, was forced
to leave Apple in 1985. He formed NeXT Inc., became president of Pixar
animation studios, and returned to Apple in 1997 as acting president.
Jobs was raised by adoptive parents
in Cupertino, California, located in what is now known as Silicon
Valley. Though he was interested in engineering, his passions of youth
varied. He dropped out of Reed College, Portland, Oregon, took a job
at Atari Corporation as a video game designer early in 1974, and saved
enough money for a pilgrimageto India to experience Buddhism.
Back in Silicon Valley in the autumn
of 1974, Jobs reconnected with Stephen
Wozniak [11 Aug 1950~], a former high school friend who was working
for the Hewlett-Packard Company. When Wozniak told Jobs of his progress
in designing his own computer logic board, Jobs suggested that they
go into business together, which they did after Hewlett-Packard formally
turned down Wozniak's design in 1976. The Apple I, as they called
the logic board,was built in the Jobses' family garage with money
they obtained by selling Jobs's Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak's programmable
calculator. Jobs was one of the
first entrepreneurs to understand that the personal computer would
appeal to a broad audience, at least if it did not appear to belong
in a junior high school science fair. With Jobs's encouragement, Wozniak
designed an improved model, the Apple II, complete with a keyboard,
and they arranged to have a sleek, molded plastic case manufactured
to enclose the unit. Though Jobs
had long, unkempt hair and eschewed business garb, he managed to obtain
financing, distribution, and publicity for the company, Apple Computer,
incorporated in 1977, the same year that the Apple II was completed.
The machine was an immediate success, becoming synonymous with the
boom in personal computers. In 1981 the company had a record-setting
public stock offering and, in 1983, made the quickest entrance (to
that time) into the Fortune 500 list of the US's top companies. In
1983 the company recruited PepsiCo, Inc., president John Sculley to
be its chief executive officer and, implicitly, Jobs's mentor in the
fine points of running a large corporation. Jobs had convinced Sculley
to accept the position by challenging him: “Do you want to sell
sugar water for the rest of your life?” The line was shrewdly
effective, but it also revealed Jobs's own near-messianic belief in
the computer revolution. During
that same period, Jobs was heading the most important project in the
company's history. In 1979 he led a small group of Apple engineers
to a technology demonstration at the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto
Research Center (PARC) to see how the graphical user interface could
make computers easier to use and more efficient. Soon afterward, Jobs
left the engineering team that was designing Lisa, a $10'000 business
computer, to head a smaller group building a lower-cost computer.
Both computers were redesigned to exploit and refine the PARC ideas,
but Jobs was explicit in favoring the Macintosh, or Mac, as the new
computer became known. Jobs coddled his engineers and referred to
them as artists, but his style was uncompromising; at one point he
demanded a redesign of an internal circuit board simply because he
considered it unattractive. He would later be renowned for his insistence
that the Macintosh be not merely great but “insanely great.”
In January 1984 Jobs himself introduced the Macintosh in a brilliantly
choreographed demonstration that was the centerpiece of an extraordinary
publicity campaign. It would later be pointed to as the archetype
of “event marketing.”
However, the first Macs were underpowered and expensive, and they
had few software applications, all of which resulted in disappointing
sales. Apple steadily improved the machine, so that it eventually
became the company's lifeblood as well as the model for all subsequent
computer interfaces. But Jobs's apparent failure to correct the problem
quickly led to tensions in the company, and in 1985 Sculley convinced
Apple's board of directors to remove the company's famous cofounder.
Jobs quickly started another firm,
the NeXT Corporation, designing powerful workstation computers for
the education market. His funding partners included Texan entrepreneur
Ross Perot [27 Jun 1930~] and Canon Inc., a Japanese electronics company.
Although the Next computer was notable for its engineering design,
it was eclipsed by less costly computers from competitors such as
Sun Microsystems, Inc. In the early 1990s, Jobs focused the company
on its innovative software system, NextStep.
Meanwhile, in 1986 Jobs bought Pixar Animation Studios, a computer-graphics
firm founded by Hollywood movie director George
Lucas [14 May 1944~]. Over the following decade Jobs built Pixar
into a major animation studio that, among other achievements, produced
the first full-length feature film to be completely computer-animated,
Toy Story, in 1995. Also in 1995, Pixar's public stock offering
made Jobs, for the first time, a billionaire.
In late 1996, Apple, saddled by huge financial losses and on the verge
of collapse, hired a new chief executive, semiconductor executive
Gilbert
Amelio [01 Mar 1943~]. When Amelio learned that the company, following
intense and prolonged research efforts, had failed to develop an acceptable
replacement for the Macintosh's aging operating system, he chose NextStep,
buying Jobs' company for over $400 million, and bringing Jobs back
to Apple as a consultant. However, Apple's board of directors soon
became disenchanted with Amelio's inability to turn the company's
finances around and in June 1997 requested Apple's prodigal cofounder
to lead the company once again. Jobs quickly forged an alliance with
Apple's erstwhile foe, the Microsoft Corporation, scrapped Amelio's
Mac-clone agreements, and simplified the company's product line. He
also engineered an award-winning advertising campaign that urged potential
customers to “think different” and buy Macintoshes. Just
as important is what he did not do: he resisted the temptation to
make machines that ran Microsoft's Windows operating system; nor did
he, as some urged, spin off Apple as a software-only company. Jobs
believed that Apple, as the only major personal computer maker with
its own operating system, was in a unique position to innovate.
Innovate he did. In 1998, Jobs introduced
the iMac, an egg-shaped, one-piece computer that offered high-speed
processing at a relatively modest price and initiated a trend of high-fashion
computers. (Subsequent models came in five different bright colors.)
By the end of the year, the iMac was the nation's highest-selling
personal computer, and Jobs was able to announce consistent profits
for the once-moribund company. The following year, he triumphed once
more with the stylish iBook, a laptop computer built with students
in mind, and the G4, a desktop computer sufficiently powerful that
(so Apple boasted) it could not be exported under certain circumstances
because it qualified as a supercomputer. Though Apple did not regain
the industry dominance it once had, Steve Jobs had saved his company,
and in the process reestablished himself as a master high-technology
marketer and visionary.

1950 Miguel Arias Cañete, político español, ministro de
Agricultura.1942 Joseph Isadore“Joe”
Lieberman, who would become a US Senator from Connecticut (first
elected on 08 Nov 1988) and the first Jew nominated for Vice President (Aug
2000) by a major political party, campaign unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic
nomination for President, and, because of his support for US President “Dubya”
Bush's war in Iraq, lose to Ned
Lamont [Jan 1954~] on 08 August 2006 the Democratic nomination for his
reelection as Senator in the 07 November 2006 election, in which he would
then run (and lose) as an Independent, splitting the Democratic vote, but
failing to cause the election of Republican Alan
Schlesinger. —(060809)1946 Margulis,
mathematician.1934 Bettino Craxi, político socialista
italiano.1929 Luis Carandell Robuste, escritor y
periodista español. 1928 Michael Harrington St Louis,
socialist/author (Fragments of Century) 1927 Mark
Lane (attorney, author: Rush to Judgment, Eyewitness Chicago;
conspiracy theorist: the Kennedy assassination)

^1927
Movietone sound movies demonstrated.
Fox demonstrated its new Movietone sound process to the media by filming
a group of reporters in the morning, then showing the film, with sound,
at night. In 1927, movie studios and theaters had developed competing
sound systems, which caused a problem for silent movie theaters. Fitting
a movie theater for sound systems proved extremely costly-to wire
a movie house for Warner Brothers' Vitaphone sound system, for example,
cost about $20'000. Several studios, including MGM, Paramount, and
Universal, had agreed to wait to make talkies until they agreed on
a single audio standard, but Warner Brothers, not part of the agreement,
released the first feature-length film to use sound, The Jazz Singer,
in October 1927. Only about 200 theaters nationwide were equipped
for Warner Brothers' Vitaphone, so a silent version of the movie was
also distributed. Through Vitaphone,
a recording could be played alongside a film, synchronized with the
onscreen action. However, synchronizing a recording with a film could
be tricky, and integrated sound systems like Movietone, where sound
was recorded onto the film itself, quickly replaced Vitaphone.
Fox began making feature films with
the Movietone system in 1928, and other major film studios followed
suit. Movietone was best known for its newsreels, which captured newsworthy
events on film and created a living historical record.
Though five companies competed for newsreel scoops, Movietone prided
itself on having the exclusive footage of several of the world's most
significant news stories. Movietone was the only newsreel producer
to capture the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath,
though that footage was kept secret for more than a year. And Movietone
executive Truman Talley was so sure that the Hindenburg would explode
one day that he ordered cameramen to cover it constantly, ensuring
that its 1937 explosion was captured on film.
Some 20 million meters of Movietone newsreels were stored in New Jersey
warehouses until the Smithsonian and the University of South Carolina
launched a campaign to save the priceless footage by converting it
to a more modern and stable film format.

^1909
Hudson Motor Car Company is incorporated
The Hudson Motor Car Company, founded by Joseph Hudson, in Detroit,
Michigan, was incorporated on this day. Hudson is perhaps most famous
for its impact on NASCAR racing, which it accomplished thanks to a
revolutionary design innovation. In 1948 Hudson introduced the Monobuilt
design. The Monobuilt consisted of a chassis and frame that were combined
in a unified passenger compartment, producing a strong, lightweight
design with a beneficial lower center of gravity that did not affect
road clearance. Hudson called the innovation the "step-down design"
because, for the first time, drivers had to step down to get into
their cars. In 1951, Hudson introduced the Hornet. Fitted with a bigger
engine than previous Hudson models, the Hudson Hornet became a dominant
force on the NASCAR circuit. Because of its lower center of gravity,
the Hornet glided around corners with relative ease, leaving its unstable
competitors in the dust. For the first time a car not manufactured
by the Big Three was winning big. In 1952 Hudson won twenty-nine of
thirty-four events. Excited by their success on the track, Hudson
executives began directly backing their racing teams, providing the
team cars with everything they needed to increase success. The Big
Three responded, and in doing so brought about the system of industry-backed
racing that has become such a prominent marketing tool today. The
Hudson Hornet would dominate NASCAR racing until 1955 when rule changes
led to an emphasis on horsepower over handling.

1887 Mary Ellen Chase, US scholar and writer who died on
28 July 1973.1885 Admiral Chester Nimitz US Admiral
(commanded Pacific fleet in WWII) 1885 - Chester Nimitz (US Navy Admiral:
WWII Commander of all Allied Forces in the SW Pacific, signed the Japanese
surrender papers). He died on 20 February 1966.1885 Stanislaw
Ignacy Witkiewicz, Polish painter who died in September 1939. —
more with link to
images.1884 Josef Stoitzer, Austrian artist who
died in 1951.1878 Felix
Bernstein, mathematician.1870
Jules-Géraud Saliège, French, ordained a priest on
21 September 1895, appointed Bishop of Gap on 29 October 1925 and consecrated
a bishop on 06 January 1926; appointed Archbishop of Toulouse on 17 December
1928; made a cardinal on 18 February 1946; died on 05 November 1956.1848 El Manifiesto comunistaes publicado
por Karl Heinrich Marx y Friedrich Engels.1844 Raffaelo Sorbi,
Italian artist who died on 19 December 1931.

^1842
Arrigo Boito, Italian poet, novelist, composer, and
librettist who died on 10 June 1918.He
was the 6-years-younger brother of Camillo
Boito. Arrigo Boito's opera
Mefistofele (1868, rev. 1875), influenced by Wagner's music-drama,
helped to bring about a new dramatic style in Italian opera. Its first
performance, at La Scala, Milan, caused a riot, but it subsequently
became very popular. Another opera, Nerone, was posthumously
finished and produced by Toscanini in 1924. Many consider Boito's
masterpieces to be the librettos for Verdi's Otello and Falstaff.
He also was librettist for Ponchielli's La Gioconda and wrote
novels and poems.
Arrigo Boito is known for the
single opera he completed, Mefistofele, inspired by Goethe's
Faust. Like Gioacchino
Rossini, who wrote three dozen operas by his mid-thirties, and
spent the next forty years of his life unable or unwilling to complete
another, Boito underwent some kind of crisis early, and worked 54
years unsuccessfully at completing his second opera.
As a student at the Milan Conservatory, Boito was awarded a stipend
after winning composition prizes that enabled him to travel and study
abroad for two years. He took advantage of the prize to visit Poland,
his mother's birthplace, as well as England, Germany, and France.
He was much impressed during these sojourns with the dramatic power
of the operas of Ludwig
van Beethoven and especially of Richard
Wagner. Hence he reshaped the traditional elements of Italian
opera to suit the kind of dramatic presentation he had in mind. The
result was Mefistofele, first performed when the composer
was barely 24, for which the highly literary and literate Boito also
wrote the libretto. At its premiere performance, a pious contingent,
objecting to the thematic modernism of Boito's version of the Faust
legend, demonstrated angrily. After the second performance was likewise
ill-received, Boito withdrew the opera and undertook to modify it
to appease criticism. It has become a staple of the repertoire, one
of the most exciting and compelling of operas.
Dry as his font of musical inspiration became, Boito nevertheless
retained in full his literary powers. He wrote librettos for Amilcare
Ponchielli's La Gioconda and for Giuseppe
Verdi's operas Falstaff and Otello,
all regarded as works of the first order. Much of Boito's poetry has
never fallen out of favor, and his letters reveal unusual gifts as
well. Seldom, if ever, has anyone else secured a seemingly imperishable
niche in musical history with so little output .
Arrigo Boito studied at and graduated
from the Conservatory of Music in Milan. In 1861 he won a scholarship
to study in Paris, and there he met important figures in the literary
and musical world such as Victor Hugo, Hector Berlioz, Gioacchino
Rossini, and Giuseppe Verdi. While in Paris he conceived the idea
of writing operas on the subjects of Faust and Nero. After traveling
in other European countries (France, Belgium, Germany, England, and
Poland), he returned to live in Milan. There he collaborated with
several newspapers as literary critic, joined the Scapigliatura group
and wrote the libretto of Mefistofele, inspired by Goethe's
Faust. The opera was performed at the Scala in 1868, but
was coldly received by both the public and the critics, who accused
Boito of imitating Wagner. Boito began a lengthy rewriting process,
and the opera was presented in 1875 in Bologna, this time with success.
Besides the librettos for his own operas, Boito wrote Amleto
(1865) for Franco Faccio, La Falce for Alfredo Catalani,
and, under the anagram-pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio, La Gioconda
for Amilcare Ponchielli, first performed in 1876.
In 1879, the publisher Giulio
Ricordi suggested to Giuseppe Verdi to collaborate with Boito
for the composition of an opera based on Shakespeare's tragedy Othello.
Boito had already worked with Verdi, writing for him the text for
the Hymn to the Nations and later working on the revision of the libretto
for Simon
Boccanegra (1881).
Among Arrigo Boito's literary works, the Libro dei Versi, L'alfier
nero and Re Orso are worthy of mention. In 1881 he began
his collaboration with Verdi, first with the revision of Simon
Boccanegra, and later with the librettos for Otello
(1887) and Falstaff
(1893). In 1924, his unfinished opera Nerone was performed
posthumously at the Scala Theatre in Milan. From 1887 to 1898 Boito
was sentimentally attached to the actress Eleonora Duse, for whom
he translated Anthony and Cleopatra, Macbeth and part of
Romeo and Juliet.
 BOITO ONLINE: libretto
of his own Mefistofele  libretto
of Verdi's Falstaff  libretto
of Verdi's Otello 

^
1836 Colt six-shooter is patented.
Six-shooter patented On this day in
1836, Samuel Colt received a patent for a firearm that would become
a central symbol of the American West: the Colt revolver. The pistol,
featuring a revolving cylinder that held six bullets, was invented
by Colt several years before while on the S.S. Carlo. Colt subsequently
set up the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company in New Jersey to manufacture
his new invention. The first Colt revolvers produced by the factory
were .24-caliber models. The company nearly failed in its first decade,
but was revived by an order from the government in 1847 for one hundred
revolvers to use in the Mexican-American War. The revolver was the
first firearm that could be used effectively by a man on horseback.
Colt set up a new factory in Connecticut and made a fortune after
the war as ranchers, outlaws, prospectors, and lawmen stormed into
the newly acquired Western territories with their six-shooters blazing.

1832 Juan Clemente Zenea, poeta y periodista cubano.1830 Narciso
Saenz Díaz Serra, poeta y dramaturgo español.1824 George Curtis, US author and editor who died on 31
August 1892.1815 Jules Achille Noël, French painter
who died on 26 March 1881.  MORE
ON NOËL AT ART 4 FEBRUARY
with links to images.1788 Johan-Christian-Clausen
Dahl, Norwegian painter who died on 14 October 1857.  MORE
ON DAHL AT ART 4 OCTOBER
with links to images.

^1786
Wilhelm Karl Grimm,
Germany, librarian, fairy tale collector and editor.
The younger of the two Grimm brothers, Wilhelm, is born in Hanau, Germany.
His brother Jakob was born on 4 January 1785. As young men, the two brothers
assisted some friends with research for an important collection of folk
lyrics. One of the authors, impressed by the brothers' work, suggested they
publish some of the oral folktales they'd collected. The collection appeared
as Children's
and Household Tales, later known as Grimm's
Fairy Tales, in several volumes between 1812 and 1822.
Tales in the Grimm brothers' collection include "Hansel and Gretel," "Snow
White," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Sleeping Beauty," "Rapunzel," and "Rumpelstiltskin."
The brothers developed the tales by listening to storytellers and attempting
to reproduce their words and techniques as faithfully as possible. Their
methods helped establish the scientific approach to the documentation of
folklore. The collection became a worldwide classic.
Jakob continued researching stories and language, and published an influential
book of German grammar. He also did important work in language study and
developed a principle, called Grimm's Law, regarding the relation of languages
to each other. In 1829, Jakob and Wilhelm became librarians and professors
at the University of Gottingen, and Jacob published another important work,
German Mythologies, exploring the beliefs of pre-Christian Germans.
In 1840, King Frederick William IV of Prussia invited the brothers to Berlin,
where they became members of the Royal Academy of Science. They began work
on an enormous dictionary, but Wilhelm died on 16 December 1859, before
entries for the letter D were completed. Jakob died on 20 September 1863,
having only gotten as far as F. Subsequent researchers finished the dictionary
many years later. Individually, Wilhelm
Grimm wrote Altdänische Heldenlieder, Balladen und Märchen (1811),
. Über deutsche Runen (1821), Die deutsche Heldensage
(1829). Wilhelm Karl Grimm, the younger
of the two Brothers Grimm, is born in Hanau, Germany. As young men, the
two brothers assisted friends in compiling an important collection of folk
lyrics. One of the authors, impressed by the brothers' work, suggested they
publish some of the oral folktales they'd collected. The collection appeared
as Children's and Household Tales, later known as Grimm's Fairy Tales, in
several volumes between 1812 and 1822.
Tales in the Grimm collection include "Hansel and Gretel," "Snow White,"
"Little Red Riding Hood," "Sleeping Beauty," "Rapunzel," and "Rumpelstiltskin."
The brothers developed the tales by listening to storytellers and attempting
to reproduce their words and techniques as faithfully as possible. Their
methods helped establish the scientific approach to the documentation of
folklore. The collection became a worldwide classic.
Wilhelm continued his study of German folklore and published a new edition
of ancient written tales. In 1829, Jacob and Wilhelm became librarians and
professors at the University of Gottingen, and Jacob published another important
work, German Mythologies, exploring the beliefs of pre-Christian Germans.
In 1840, King Frederick William IV of Prussia invited the brothers to Berlin,
where they became members of the Royal Academy of Science. They began work
on an enormous dictionary, but Wilhelm died in 1959, before entries for
the letter D were completed. Jacob followed four years later, having only
gotten as far as F. Subsequent researchers finished the dictionary many
years later.